Are we there yet? Evaluating 1:1 and 21st Century Instruction

One of my goals for the 2015-16 school year was to research the impact of our 1:1 iPad program on 21st-century instruction. This was year 3 of 1:1 iPads in grades 7-12. It was time to see if we were making an impact. Even though 21st-century instruction is a “dated term”, it is still the term we coined in the report. Maybe technology infused pedagogy could have been a better term – but honestly, what we are really looking for is student-centered learning that is amplified using technology.

The research would include feedback from parents, students, and educators. Because our program is a 1:1 in only grades 7-12, I also needed to look at the differences of our 1:1 classrooms vs. non 1:1 classrooms. This was a change from our 2014 survey.

The first step in this process was to redesign a couple of surveys to ask questions to around these instructional practices. The parent survey had very little revisions, the student survey had a few revisions, and the teacher survey had significant revisions.

I decided to send the newly designed teacher survey to one of my favorite email groups – KIC – a technology integration group based out of the Minneapolis- for feedback. From that email, I received quite a few responses, but it was Dr. Joel VerDuin’s (@jverduin), Chief Technology Officer of Anoka-Hennepin schools, that gave me excellent advice! He suggested that I also include focus group interviews. What a brilliant idea! How to archive these interviews – why not record (with my iPad!) and include them in the report? These powerful video interviews with students, teachers, and samples of student work could further tell a story of how technology was impacting our classrooms. It goes beyond graphs and charts and makes these new learning environments visible! To deliver the report, I needed a tool that would work with text, graphs, and EMBED video – so I chose Google Slides. I altered the page setup (8.5 x 11) and begin to organize my work. If anyone needs a printed copy – a PDF can easily be downloaded and printed.

Below is the results of my research. While we have had some great success, we still have a tremendous amount of work to do. We are by no means “there” yet and will be creating new goals based on the findings of this research. Take a peek at the videos. Some teachers are at the beginning stages of new learning environments, while others have been working at it for a while. This also does not capture all of the great things our teachers are doing – just a small sample! All worthy of celebrating!